While all other parties, bar the Alliance, were sliding, Sinn Féin was rock solid and growing.
Sinn Féin had harnessed a sense of grievance and turned it into votes. They got more people out than in previous elections.
Turnout was the key, up ten percentage points on last year's Assembly elections.
As Mike Nesbitt resigns as UUP leader, more than half of the seats are filled in the Northern Ireland Assembly election #AE17 pic.twitter.com/QCBArj6n9W
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) March 3, 2017
The DUP will be in a very sad mood. The only consolation for the DUP is that the UUP is having an even worse election.
The SDLP will lose at least two of its 12 seats.
The Alliance Party, like Sinn Féin, is holding its own. For leader Naomi Long, it may be the encouragement to go from opposition benches to government, if there is one - and that is a very big if.
Now, the Irish and British governments have the very difficult task of trying to encourage the parties over a three-week period to go into government.
Those negotiations will start next week.
RTÉ Northern Editor Tommie Gorman gives analysis on #AE17 as over half of the seats are filled pic.twitter.com/96wW7JYP1S
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) March 3, 2017
